As most people probably have at some point in their lives, I had to reassemble one of my motorcycles’ steering stem.  This requires a particular torquing/tightening procedure for seating the bearings which must be followed to avoid improper steering tension and long term damage to the steering stem components.  Unfortunately it also requires a special tool for turning the very non-standard steering stem nuts.  The service manual helpfully identifies the tool part numbers.

Steering stem tightening procedure from the SV1000 service manual

Not so helpfully, the tools mentioned cost about $140 + shipping from the cheapest supplier.  Finding this preposterous, I went to the local Suzuki dealer in hopes of borrowing the tool for a day.  Oddly, they couldn’t find the exact tool to fit the nuts and suggested I might use a spanner wrench instead (um… no).  So it was time to get creative.

Not about to shell out $150 for a single-purpose tool, I picked up a $6 1.25 inch deep socket from good ‘ol Northern Tool and some heavy duty Dremel cutting wheels.  After an hour and a half of bathing in a shower of incandescent sparks, I had this:

Home made Suzuki steering stem socket

Take that, obscure expensive proprietary Suzuki tool!